


Movement

by Wittyandcharming



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, I Believe in Sherlock Holmes, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4317783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wittyandcharming/pseuds/Wittyandcharming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the "I Believe in Sherlock Holmes" movement came about. Because omg seriously, Anderson? Does that honestly make sense to ANYONE?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movement

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, have more than moved on from Sherlock and all related things, but here's another one I really liked about the Believe in Sherlock stuff.

In the weeks after, she almost expected John to come back, though he would have no real reason to be there. She imagined he would walk in, say hello as he leaned on his cane, and make the same small talk he made in the days following his loss. Their loss. That day, Molly thought she had witnessed the first death of her life. She worked with post mortems, yes, but the work she did was always with bodies whose life, whose souls, or whatever it was that a body housed, had already long flown. When it was gone, that’s when her work would start. The aftermath was her business, not the process.

But John Watson had died that day as he stood in the lab. Perhaps the shock had delayed the moment. Perhaps he had come here out of habit. She imagined the numb journey he’d taken to St. Bartholomew’s. Had he walked? The idea was almost too much to bear, but she wasn’t sure if he’d have the presence of mind to hail a cab.

She’d watched him as his eyes darted around the sterile white of the walls, jumped from the station by the microscope, to the centrifuge, to the tiny refrigerator that housed a wealth of chemical reagents, and she knew, even if he didn’t, that he was looking for him.

That was the moment. When each place his eyes alighted came away without his silhouette, that was the moment Molly Hooper saw John Watson die.

She wanted to tell him. God how she’d wanted to tell him the truth. Of all people in the world, even more than Mycroft, more than the stripped and disgraced Lestrade, John deserved to know. But of all people in the world, John was the one person who could never know.

She’d gone home early after that.

Even still, when John’s last breath left him before he limped back out the door, Molly thought she might see him again. Or perhaps she had just hoped. She’d hoped he would limp back through the door, bring his shell to her. Those, after all, were her business. She was so intimately acquainted with the paths of their frozen blood, the mechanics of their stillborn breath. Perhaps she could find a way to make both work in John again.

But he never returned, and though she was sorry, she was not surprised.

Still, one night, she left the hospital and drove the wrong way home. She found herself on Baker Street, the brassy glint of the numbers, 221B, winking at her in the street lights. She approached the door, but didn’t knock. Instead, she withdrew a tube of lipstick, the shade she once wore to grab Sherlock’s attention. It had worked in all the wrong ways. She let a small, sad smile tug at one corner of her mouth. She’d been so silly, but how could she have known that all it would take for him to notice her was for her to notice him?

Silently, so as not to alert John or Mrs. Hudson to her presence, she pulled the cap from the lipstick, twisting it out and pressing it’s rosy pinkness to the black paint of the door. With careful pressure and stealthy speed, she dragged the soft pigment in lines and loops, until she’d finished writing the five words she prayed would give John back his hope.

I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES.

She stood back, admiring her work. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t what he deserved. But it was all she could give him.

With fast, silent steps, she returned to her car and headed home, wondering if Sherlock would be able to tell what she’d done when she got there. She didn’t care. Let him deduce it if he liked. It would give him something to do.

The next morning, as John left the flat, the words greeted him as the door hinged open. He froze, staring at them, a vague pressure throbbing where his heart once was. Eventually, he breathed again, his head tingling with the rush of blood that met him as the oxygen hurried in. He hadn’t known where he was going when he’d opened that door. Now, he did.

Hours later, in the alleys and underpasses of London, the sunless passages that had never seen the color now splashed upon them shouted a message into the city. Sometimes small, sometimes in letters unapologetically tall, but each with the same words sprayed out in yellow paint.

They were the first true words about him that many would read in a long time.

I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES.


End file.
